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About Andrew
Andrew Saliba is a guitarist and composer from San Diego who creates searching, insightful music both for and about the human condition. Blending technical acumen with a burning creative impetus, he explores interdisciplinary means of realizing creative expression. Andrew has written for and performed with the US Navy Commodores, John Hébert, Peter Erskine, Andrew Rathbun, David Binney, Jeremy Siskind, Edward Simon, Peter Eldridge, new music ensemble Collect/Project, the Sam Pilnick Project, and Downbeat award-winning electronic jazz group Lushh. Andrew currently performs with internationally acclaimed singer-songwriter Cameron Blake.
Andrew has won national awards for performance and composition. He recently received the 2020 Young Composer Award from the Jazz Education Network. In 2019 Andrew won a third Downbeat Magazine award as a soloist. In 2018, Andrew received a Downbeat award for the large-ensemble composition “Silent Minority”. He has received seven other Downbeat awards as a member of various groups.
Andrew’s debut EP, Waxes and Wanes, was released in February 2019. It has been described as “a creative wellspring of soaring melodies, vibrant harmonies and expert musicianship from start to finish…[Waxes and Wanes] offers every listener a way to connect to emotions that make us all human” (Local Spins).
Andrew conceptualized and composed Lushh’s major 2017-2018 multimedia work, Insight Unsought. The work was a conceptual exploration combining a 10-piece chamber jazz group with electronics, dynamic live projection, and live painting. In addition to developing the concept and music for the project, Andrew also compiled and wrote the poetry that formed its backbone. The work was created with the support of the Kalamazoo Arts Council, and described as “a singular vision with music and changing visual elements wrapped around some careful[ly] composed and curated poems to highlight different depictions of dreaming and sleep.” (Local Spins)
Andrew holds a M.M. in Composition and B.M. in Jazz Studies from Western Michigan University. Teaching and education are longstanding passions of Andrew’s: he has taught and developed curricula at Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo College, the Jazz and Creative Institute of Kalamazoo, and Ubiquitous Music in San Diego, in addition to teaching privately in San Diego and Southwest Michigan. His students have gone on to study at Western Michigan University, Columbia College, Michigan Technological University, Tilburg University, and Berklee College of Music.
Andrew is proud to play a Benedetto guitar.
Andrew appears on Cameron Blake’s 2020 album Censor the Silence - available now!
“You have a deep mind.”
-Rufus Reid